During the week of Dr. Agnes Stacey's daughter's wedding, each of the attendees brings their own tensions. Agnes's uncle, Professor Malcolm Miller, has harbored a family secret since Agnes's parents died in a car crash when she was a young girl. Dr. Joseph Bradshaw, who married into the family, has nursed a private obsession with Agnes since his brief stint as her therapist. Agnes herself is returning to her ex-husband's home for the first time, just as she's trying to extricate herself from a potent love affair. As they all emerge from painful years in emotional isolation, Malcolm considers where better to lay bare the failures and secrets of one's advancing age than at an intimate celebration of love?
Because the narrators' points of view are not distinct enough, the book feels repetitive ... Campbell brings her analytic background to bear on an extended exploration of ambiguity -- in love, in questions about free will, and in the unfathomability of both past and future.
Admirers of Mary Wesley will appreciate this impressive debut by another late-blooming writer. From its lovely cover to its character-driven plot, this poignant novel is warmly recommended.
Campbell probes these complicated ideas in clear, shimmering prose, turning the characters’ engagement with their psyches into something quite intoxicating.
